Lithium has long been used to help bolster the strength of ceramics and to produce more vivid colors in glazes.
Lithium has become super-expensive this year as car and battery manufacturers scour the planet for scarce supplies, and as the industry has hit limits on capacity to refine raw materials into specialist chemicals. That means fatter earnings for producers and — as often happens in runaway commodities markets — some unconventional entrants seeking to make a profit. The ceramics producers of Gao’an city in China’s Jiangxi province are a prime example. About 15% of the city’s plants have switched from churning out their traditional products to making lithium briquettes that can be further processed into chemicals used in battery production, according to Albert Li, an analyst at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. In part, the change reflects the sector’s struggles with overcapacity amid a deep malaise in China’s property market and the impact of higher ..